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Minor miracles
Posted: Tuesday January 18, 2000 03:51 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity was a 42-year-old 8-handicapper when he suddenly lost his swing. Since December 1989 he has been looking for it -- a modern-day Odysseus adrift on the troubled waters of swing theory. As Garrity travels the world reporting on golf, he visits as many driving ranges as he can, avoiding the dreaded "mats only" ranges that prevent him from teeing it up. This week, he explains the story of his namesame bunker in Maui.
January 18, 2000 LA JOLLA, Calif. -- Sometimes I think I'm losing my grip. There is, for instance, this strange business of my forgetting how to hit a driver. Three years ago, when I took my first lesson from Brian Mogg at the Leadbetter Academy, I put the long club away for a while. (When you're rebuilding your swing from scratch, you start with baby steps -- easy wedges and uncomplicated seven-irons.) It became a running joke between me and my wife. "Maybe this time Brian will let me hit the driver," I would say, packing for a trip to Orlando. It's a joke because every lesson with Mogg ends up with me practicing some anatomically challenging new move with a five-iron. Not that I didn't try to hit a driver now and again. Weeks after a lesson, having gained confidence with a four-wood -- or, more recently, with my Taylor Made Firesole three-wood -- I would take my 46-inch Founders Club Judge titanium driver out of the freezer and go to the range. I would then proceed to hit a dozen drives, evenly divided between snap hooks, low pulls, toe hooks, duck hooks, Arabian worm burners and Boston pops. (That's two of each, math majors.) Not even my newest toy, a 10° Callaway Hawkeye Great Big Bertha, solved the problem. So it was folly, two weeks ago, when I set off for Hawaii with the Callaway driver in my bag. I wasn't going to use it. I was just airing it. Here's where it gets weird. My first day in Maui I went to the new, all-grass range at the Kapalua Golf Academy. I started out hitting the ball poorly, bothered by the gusty trade winds that swept down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains. But then I started hitting the ball really well. So -- what the hell -- I pulled the head cover off Big Bertha. I teed a ball high, settled into my stance ... and then stared at the angle the shaft made with my target line. Should my hands be that far ahead of the ball? Of course not. Not with the driver. I shuffled my feet, moved my hands so the shaft made a right angle to the target line, and swung. BOOM. The ball leaped off the clubface, flew downrange with a perfect draw, and disappeared into a catch basin at the boundary berm. I teed up another ball. BOOM, same result. Another. BAM -- pulled a bit, but long. BOOM ... POW ... WHAM. I hit maybe 20 drives, and although a few were misdirected, they all were hit. Best of all, my rediscovered skill with the driver didn't disappear into the car trunk with my clubs. I returned the next day and hit the driver again. And again. And again. I tell you, it felt good to make a golf ball really fly again. You know what's next. The following Monday, playing in a media day fivesome at the Plantation Course, I hit a troubling variety of tee shots. My five-wood turned into a pumpkin, and I hit three of those strange pull-top shots that used to leave me 60 yards off the tee with some regularity. Big Bertha wasn't strictly faithful to me, either -- I hit three low, running hooks and one power fade that vanished into a forest preserve somewhere up the mountain. But I hit maybe six drives on the button, including terrific smacks on Plantation's big finishing holes, 17 and 18. Cut to the following Tuesday. Honolulu. The Ala Wai municipal driving range. I've just hit three straight sweeping hooks with my five-wood, and I've checked the damn thing for dents, cracks and genital warts. Then -- and it's almost a reprise of my Maui epiphany -- I stare at the club while gripping it with just my left hand. I tighten my grip. The clubface twists 15° shut. Huh? I do it again. Grip the club. Squeeze. The clubface shuts down. Now with two hands. Grip. Squeeze. Slam. I had forgotten about the "short thumb." I had literally lost my grip, allowing my left thumb, over time, to straighten and lose its stabilizing function. I gripped the club again with my left hand only; but this time I pulled my thumb back into a bowed or "short" position, exerting more direct pressure on the club. I squeezed the club, and -- nada! The clubface stayed square. I hit 10 five-woods off a mat with the short-thumb grip, and all 10 shots were solid, none of them a sweeping hook. I switched to my driver and hit 10 more balls. Most of them flew over the 200-yard sign, over the mound behind it, and for all I know tore through the wire fence at the end of the range. I had my A game back. (Range division, of course.) It served to remind me that in golf the smallest thing -- ball position, a change of posture, a butterfly flapping its wings in China -- can lead to disastrous results. Similarly, the smallest intelligent adjustment can produce miracles. I spent the rest of my mornings in Hawaii hitting drivers at rainbows.
Watch this space for another installment of Mats Only. To send John Garrity advice, share your experiences or suggest a driving range, click here.
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